Sneak Off a Little Before Midnight
by Carlier36
Summary: Miles, Rachel and Monroe confront their history. As it turns out, none of them have really changed as much as they thought. Spoilers for 2.05, "One Riot, One Ranger"


Disclaimer: I do not own Revolution nor am I associated with any of the cast or crew.

Title Inspired By: "Don't you know that a midnight hour comes when everyone has to take off his mask? Do you think life always lets itself be trifled with? Do you think you can sneak off a little before midnight to escape this?" ― Søren Kierkegaard

Prompt: Masks, nbc_revolution's Halloween Bingo-a-Thon

A/N: I definitely took this prompt much more metaphorically than literally as I was most interested in exploring the different faces of Miles, Rachel and, to some extent, Monroe than I was in actual, literal masks. Also, this isn't exactly dark!Rachel, but she's not too cheery here either. With that said, I do adore Rachel – I just wanted to show her deepest, darkest thoughts about motherhood, her relationship with Miles and tie in her canon, blatant anger with Charlie for having brought Monroe home.

I made one small change in canon, although I tried to stay in keeping with the scene as much as possible, and that is the subtraction of Aaron. I'm not an Aaron hater but this fic was almost too crowded with four people standing around – a fifth would have thrown everything off. Consider Aaron out gathering buckets of water to clean up the mill, or something.

**Sneak Off A Little Before Midnight**

The mill smelled of sawdust and stale blood and Rachel drew a ragged breath through her mouth to avoid the scent. She leaned in the open window, splinters digging into her palms unheeded as she imagined herself anywhere else, anywhere she didn't have to breathe the same air as Monroe. Miles' hand settled on her shoulder; she flinched away without looking up. "_Don't- _touch me."

"Rache. Come on." His voice was low in the over-crowded room, too many ears listening in. His eyes darted to the body in the center of the room and then up into the corner just a few feet away, where she knew Charlie stood staring back at him, gun propped against her leg and Bass slouched beside her shoulder like he belonged, the bastard. Like he hadn't just killed for the love of it, the love of power and of Miles. She'd been unable to help noticing how unbothered Charlie seemed by the blood splatter he wore like war paint.

"You think I'm gonna let him just walk back into our lives like he deserves a _slap on the wrist? _You are a _coward, _Miles, and I should have realized that the first time you failed to kill him." His good hand wrapped around her arm, squeezing too tight, and when she lifted her head, he wore the old familiar General Matheson mask, poorly hiding his bruised ego. "What are you going to do, hit me? Or just threaten to like you always used to? You haven't changed one bit. How could I be so _stupid?_"

"_Don't_, Rachel."

Wrenching her arm out of his grip, she narrowed her eyes at him, truly angry, it seemed, for the first time in six months. "He is a _monster. _He turned you into a monster too, once, and he'll do it again. You always roll over for him, you always will."

"Bass may be a monster but we need him." Rachel could tell his palm itched to slap her, could read it in his eyes, flat and brittle. Her gaze darted over him, wrinkled shirt down to dusty boots and the brutal-looking knife at his belt.

"We do _not. _We already have our very own 'General of the Militia'," Rachel shot back with a sneer, waving a hand at him.

Miles' jaw clenched, fingers curling into a fist beneath his bandage as he crowded her back against the wall, breath warm on her cheek. "What makes you think anything is different now than it was this morning or in that _alley?_"

"You forget, Miles: you were a very tender and _affectionate_ captor too."

"Don't you _dare_ imply I everhurt you like that. Anything we ever did, you wanted as much as I did."

"Don't flatter yourself." Her voice dropped though, cracking halfway through, much like her resolve. She wasn't as strong as she had been back then, even as she had been after Philadelphia, and the delusion was too much to keep up.

Charlie murmured something across the room, Bass' hand on her shoulder, and it was all she could do not to stare, not to hate her daughter just for standing next to him. For letting him touch her.

"You think I don't hate him?"

"I think you love him. I think you pine for him."

"Yeah, well, it doesn't take a lot to hate the people we love. You of all people should know that." He glanced over her shoulder again, mouth pressed into a tight line. "It's not me you should be worried about."

Rachel leaned into him without thinking, drawing her bottom lip in between her teeth. "I did tell you to take better care of her than you did of me. Me worrying about her wasn't really part of the deal."

"You don't mean that." It was a feeble protest and although perhaps she _didn't _really mean it, the careless feel of it on her tongue, on her bones, was seductive. She hadn't been a mother in many years, after all, not really.

"Besides, I don't think it's Charlie's well-being you're worried about."

Miles moved his damaged hand up over her ribcage, lifting the other to curl around her hand as if he had a gentle bone left in his body. "Yeah?"

She shook her head, eyes narrowing on the curve of his busted knuckles over her hands. "You're worried about her finally seeing what you really are."

His jaw tightened along with his grip as he lifted her hand to his lips, eyebrow arched. "You saw what I am and you're still here." A kiss brushed over her fingers and then he was turning her hand over, mouth pressing against her palm. She held back a shudder, not willing to give him the satisfaction though he had years of experience reading her.

Rachel's lips tipped up into an approximation of a smile. "Ah, but I'm not as naïve as she is." Her voice was practically a whisper but she couldn't quite bring herself to be dismayed, not with him standing so close, dark eyes as unsettling as ever. "I never wanted you to be a hero. Never wanted you to be a coward either."

Miles dipped his head, mouth close to her ear, as much for the sake of privacy as the sake of intimacy. "Admit it. We need him."

"You need him. I just want his head."

"Never said anything about want, just need. Apples and oranges, Rachel." He looked about ready to kiss her, all split lip and dark eyes, and it was too much. Her eyes shot across the room and without giving him a chance to think, she ducked under his arm, palming the knife from his belt.

His arm swung out after her, injured hand banging against the wall and she didn't have to see his face to know how easily she had ignited his anger. She slipped on scattered hay and grain, catching herself on a wood post with her free hand, too far away to do much damage but close enough that if she reached out she could probably get his shoulder.

"Come on, Bass." Rachel narrowed her eyes, knife steady in her hand. "We both know what you've got coming."

A smirk twisted his lips and Monroe took a step closer. Cocky. His boots skimmed John Fry's cold, limp hand. That old swagger and twinkle seemed to have returned since she last saw him. "I can help you, Rachel, whether you want it or not."

Charlie shot him a look that was all Miles, mild annoyance and cocky recklessness, stepping in front of him. "Mom. Put it down." She sounded so blasé, so irritated, as if Rachel was just completely out-of-touch, couldn't possibly understand what she was doing.

"Get out of the way, Charlie. Or I swear to God, I will run you through too."

Rachel wasn't sure if she'd really do it, stab her daughter just to get to Monroe.

She watched with disconnected interest as Charlie flinched, the cock-surety in her eyes waver as she looked to Miles, always Miles, for help. Judging by the worried furrow in her brow, perhaps for once, she didn't find the face of the kind, if exasperated, uncle she always expected. Rachel couldn't risk a look over her shoulder at him; if she did, Monroe could be on her in a second, but she could imagine the fury Charlie must be seeing.

The moment of tense silence passed. Behind her, Miles shifted and sighed and she could sense the anger coiled in him fade to resigned honesty.

"If he deserves to die, then I do too." It wasn't what she'd expected and Rachel darted a glare at him anyway. "I'm just as responsible, Rachel."

"Miles, don't-" Charlie protested, hand on her hip, but Monroe cut her off with a look. She crossed her arms, jaw clenching, with her body still in front of his, protecting him.

Everyone seemed engrossed in her, in what she might do, and Rachel felt a surge of heady power over these men that had once held the world in their hands.

Her skin prickled and bugs whistled outside the window and before she had really made up her mind, Rachel found herself moving, twisted wooden floorboards creaking beneath her feet. The mill was strangely still as she stepped and she realized later that it must have been only a few seconds before she pressed the tip of the knife to his throat.

Miles' face remained as unfazed and challenging as ever, eyebrow lifting a fraction. "Go ahead, Rachel. Slit my throat. Do you think I care?"

She swallowed hard, tongue feeling thick in her mouth as a memory flashed in front of her eyes, his face nearly a decade younger with darker hair, a pressed green uniform and the same words said in that quiet, controlled voice that had summed up General Matheson.

"I care." Rachel nearly rolled her eyes at the harsh crack of Monroe's voice, his defense of Miles all too predictable, even after everything.

"Bass. Stay out of this," Miles warned without lifting his eyes from Rachel's, bad hand hanging limp at his side and the other resting on his sword.

"Shit, Miles, I didn't come all this way to let Rachel Matheson slice you open." She heard his footstep behind her, felt his hand snake around her chest. Monroe was so close she could smell the grass stains on his shirt and the gunpowder on his skin. It made her stomach turn even though the same scents on Miles would make her heart race. Maybe she really did have a double standard.

She could see Miles watching the thoughts race through her head and felt a little dizzy at the idea. In a split second, Monroe's hand closed around her wrist and she jerked, digging the blade into his forearm without breaking eye contact with Miles.

Monroe grunted, swearing low in her ear and she noted with disgust the way Charlie gasped just across the room. Shoving an arm back through hers and wrenching her elbows behind her, hot blood streaking across his arm and onto her shirt, Monroe held her stiff against his chest.

Miles plucked the knife from her hand and just like that, they were a team again, always in perfect unison without trying. It was sickening that even after years of hunting each other, they could fall into a decades-old rhythm in a second. Across the room, she could hear Charlie hacking at a mostly-empty grain bag with her knife, tearing it into strips, ever the pragmatic Matheson.

The tip of the blade skimmed her pulse point, the curve of her breast, Miles' eyes following its path as if he wasn't sure where it would go next. "Planning to use that thing?" Her voice was quieter, breathier, than she'd intended and Rachel cursed in her head. "Or is this just your old psychological bullshit?"

He was silent for too long, Monroe's breath warm on her neck. "Right now, we need him, whether you like it or not. You gotta get a grip, Rachel, see the big picture."

"The big picture is you letting a murderer into bed with us."

"I've murdered people too, Rachel."

"So have I." She lifted an eyebrow, Monroe leaning to rest his head on her shoulder, his bloody arm clearly growing tired. It took everything she had not to be sick. "He's different. He enjoys it."

Miles slipped his injured hand between her and Monroe, dragging her against his chest, knife sliding back up to press firmly against her throat. Charlie was already waiting at his side with the strip of burlap, nimble fingers tying it around his bleeding arm. Rachel could hear him cussing and Charlie grumbling and she felt a stab of betrayal that they were really so much alike.

Miles shook her, dragging her attention back to him and the knife in his hand. "So do you. I saw you after you killed Strausser. You were high on it."

Rachel narrowed her eyes at him, fierce and cold. "How can you-"

He raised an eyebrow, lips pressed together in a thin line and she swallowed hard. He always let her push him much farther than he would let most but there was still a line and this was it. "It's a rush," she murmured in a rare moment of honesty, shivering at the scrape of cold steel on her skin.

He ducked his head, eyes open, and mouthed along her jaw. Rachel tipped her head back, fingers knotting at his waist. "We both know this is going to happen, you and me," Miles whispered, soft enough that the others could only guess at what he was saying.

Nodding her head, so the knife pressed more dangerously into her delicate flesh, she let her eyes fall half-shut but in a blink, his arm around her tightened.

She drew a sharp gasp, eyes snapping open again, the blade twisting in his hand and pressing point-down over her heart. "But, Rachel, I swear to God, you try anything like this _one more time _and I will cut you open so fast you won't ever know what happened. _Do you understand?_"

She stared at him with wide blue eyes and, as inconceivable as this version of him probably was to Charlie, she and Monroe shared a longstanding knowledge of General Matheson and his moods.

In that moment, Miles meant every word of it, meant every glare and kiss and breath. Rachel's voice was steady when she spoke, holding his stare. "Fine. But as soon as we kick these Patriot bastards back into the sea, I am going to kill him and maybe I'll have to kill you too, just for good measure."

"I'd like to see you try," he muttered against her lips, tucking the knife abruptly back into his belt. His good hand closed around her arm, jerking her towards the door. "Deal with all this, Bass," he barked, gesturing with a sweep of his arm to the dead body, the blood-soaked floor and, for that matter, Charlie's frank, angry frustration at the unfamiliar versions of the people she thought she knew.

Rachel stumbled alongside Miles, letting him shove her outside, the door rattling behind them with a bang. She shivered in the cold November night and whirled on him, expecting a fight, expecting him to yell the way he clearly hadn't wanted to in front of Charlie and Monroe. Instead, she found herself slammed back against the building, Miles' hands splayed across her jaw and his mouth slanted over hers.

A surprised mumble was followed quickly by an unintentional moan as he sucked her bottom lip in between his teeth, knee shoving her thighs apart. She ground against him without thinking, her senses overwhelmed with the roughness of his skin and the taste of whiskey and sweat. Rachel wound her arms around his neck, thumb sliding against his throat on the way and she imagined for a moment she could feel the pinprick she'd made there with his own knife.

"Miles. Miles, what are we-"

His hand slipped down a familiar path over her breast and deep into the small of her back, tongue sliding in her mouth and she stopped arguing. No point, not when Monroe was at their door and the Patriots and the Rangers and everyone else weren't far behind. Miles had always had a habit of grabbing a spare moment when they had it, no matter what was going on around them. The world could be burning around their feet and he'd think it was a good time to kiss her.

Rachel moaned against his lips and his teeth, feeling for once that maybe he had the right idea. It didn't matter how often they hurt each other, didn't matter if the knifepoint was at his throat or hers. Underneath the layers of Matheson and Militia and Monroe's lingering presence, they were still those stupid kids that had equated cheap and ugly with romance.

She'd have been content to stay right there up against the wall but while she was catching up to the harsh slide of her thighs over his, Miles was flicking open the button on her pants.

Unwinding one arm from around him, she trailed her hand down his chest and hooked her thumb over the edge of her pants. They fumbled them over her hips, her arm balanced around his neck as she kicked the fabric off. Miles pulled away just long enough to open his own pants and she whined, low in the back of her throat, at his absence, hands clawing at his shoulders. Shoving her panties aside with his fingers, he lifted her halfway, her legs hitching around his hips and she felt him push inside her, an inch at a time.

Rachel swallowed a moan, fingers tangling in his dark hair as he filled her, muscles protesting the strain of holding herself up around his waist. Still, the pulse of his blood pounding against her was enough to drag an eager keen from somewhere deep inside.

"Would you really kill me?" His question cut through gasps and moans and the rattling of the door with each thrust of his hips against hers .

Rachel took a moment to gather her breath and her thoughts, nails nearly piercing his shoulders as she clung to him. Shrugging, she tipped her head back against the wall and let him slam her into it over and over. Come morning, she'd have bruises on her back but for now it was the closest to reality than she'd felt in months. "Hadn't really thought about it before tonight. Not in a long time anyway."

He dropped his forehead to her shoulder, slick with sweat, and his rough bandage brushed against bare skin, pushing up the edge of her shirt. Rachel shivered at the feeling, eyes drifting shut against the glare of night, his body melting against hers as he always had. The great, feared general, burying his lonely terrors in the body of his brother's wife. "Would you really kill me?" she asked suddenly, felt him trip over his rhythm without lifting his head.

Miles pressed a dry kiss to her collarbone. "In the heat of the moment. Maybe."

She rolled her hips against his and he seemed to forget the weight of the question, of the answer, picking up an ungainly momentum again with a strangled sort of groan. "Jesus, Rachel," he whispered into her throat and she swallowed hard, swallowed the out-of-place desire to kiss away the tense set of his shoulders and murmur all the things they'd never quite said.

Digging her nails into his neck, she grit her teeth. "You come inside me, I _will_ kill you."

Miles groaned in protest and what sounded like a pleasant sort of agony, lifting her hips just far enough to slip out of her. He unraveled in her arms, coming with a curse and a pleading whisper of her name that might well have been the same thing. "When did we get so messed up?"

Rachel didn't answer, only found her hesitant footing, legs aching and wobbly as she started to pull away. "Hey. What about you?" His bad hand shot out, curling awkwardly against her hip as the other drifted between her legs, thin fabric separating them.

She knocked his hand away, shaking her head. "Not in the mood." With goosebumps rising unannounced on her bare legs, Rachel bent down to grab her jeans and began pulling them on without a glance in his direction.

"Not in the _mood?_"

Straightening, she buttoned her jeans, methodical as ever and arched an eyebrow at him. "Whatever this is going to be, there's still a monster in there with my daughter and a dead man. Forgive me for not feeling particularly orgasmic."

"Son of a bitch, Rachel, don't be like that."

The door swung open without warning, light flooding their faces and the debauched tension between them. Monroe leaned out, hand wrapped around the knob, Charlie's hastily made bandage stained red around his arm and an expectant irritation on his face. "You done with the hate sex out here? We've got to move fast, before the Rangers realize Fry's missing."

Rachel cleared her throat, grateful for his interruption if not his presence or the knowledge that they'd heard everything. "Quite done." Stepping up into the doorway, she brushed past him, lip curled in disgust and the weight of Miles' stare on the back of her neck.

Walking back inside, she found herself back at the window, avoiding Charlie's glare. The girl really had learned everything she knew from Miles; she shoved away a pang of guilt. No time. The door slammed shut and she could just make out the men muttering in the other room.

"_Is she going to be a problem?"_

"_Shut up, Bass."_

Rachel shook her head, leaning her hands back on the window sill. After all this time, none of them had really changed in the least.


End file.
